Codemasters expanding Guildford studio

Codemasters has announced an "aggressive recruitment program" for its Guildford studio, and confirmed that the outfit is working on "an original action FPS".

The game is the brainchild of Stuart Black, co-creator and designer of EA Criterion's well-regarded 2006 shooter for PS2 and Xbox called, coincidentally, Black. It's for "leading console platforms".

According to Codemasters, the game entered full production 12 months ago and is an original IP using the company's impressive EGO engine, seen in racers like Race Driver: GRID and Colin McRae: DiRT as well as the recent Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.

Black is the game's creative director, and is joined by executive producer Tom Gillo from Sony London and senior producer Andrew Wilson from Black Rock. The development team is currently 80 strong.

The Guildford studio opened in 2007 and is run by Adrian Bolton, also from EA Criterion, and has a remit to develop original action games. There are design, programming and art jobs available and Codemasters hopes to start building up a second team and get another game in production. More info at the company's careers site.